Two Step Flow Theory

History of Theory
Two-step flow theory was first introduced by Paul Lazarsfeld in the year 1944 and elaborated by Elihu Katz and Lazarsfeld in year 1955. Before the television was being invented, they conducted an American survey on the mass campaign as it showed that informal social relationship was related in revising the manner in which individuals selected content from the media campaign. They conducted a study that was The People’s Choice to focus on the process of decision making during a Presidential election campaign and it was based on a panel study of 2400 voters in Erie Country, Ohio.
The presidential election 1940 questioned as to whether President Franklin Roosevelt would seek his third term in office. It had been funded by grants

In this theory, opinion leaders are those constantly exposed to various or specific media content and proceed to interpret it based on their own understanding. The information will be filtered by the opinion leaders and then communicate and reach towards the audiences via the media. This theory deals with the opinion leader and also opinion follower. Opinion leader generally have some form of publicity or followers in which they are able to permeate those opinion through general public who become “opinion followers”. Certain people will have a large influence on how people gain opinions about specific media texts. For example, if someone was saying about Avengers movie was amazing and others people will go and watch it and have the same opinion also. This is because the two step flow theory had affected their mind about what they had

They will pass on their own interpretations and understanding to the actual media content and tend to change audiences’ attitudes and behaviours. This theory helps us to understand the media messages had been conveyed by the opinion leaders and they tend to influence audiences’ thought.
For instance, this theory can be applied on Colgate Brush Your Teeth public relations campaign in Taiwan. This campaign was launched in congestion of medical health department of Taiwan on educating general public about how unhealthy tooth can cause serious health problem in a long run. The location was set in a shopping mall by showcasing live demonstration of how Colgate can cure common teeth problem and what caused it and along with professional dentist and Taiwan actress Tammy Chen.
Tammy Chen is a famous actress in Taiwan and she had gum bleeding problem and caused her to lose the movie contract. She did not know gum bleeding is the premonition of periodontosis as she thought just her body health problem. In order to show to the public that she got a healthy gingiva than before, she became the ambassador of Colgate and appealed to her fans to emphasize on teeth